“I assure you that no one in the Conclave has suggested that this new information has cast the Earth in a suspicious light,” I said, choosing not to mention that Unli Hado, in point of fact, had accused the planet of being full of traitors and spies. “What I am interested in knowing, prior to my meeting with General Gau, is whether the Earth has received this information, and what their response has been to it.”
“I was about to call Umman when he called me to set up this meeting,” Byrne said. “I received a skip drone from the UN this morning with the information, to give to you in case you did not already have it, and the denial of involvement that I just offered you. Done up much more formally, of course. I will have all of it sent to your office.”
“Thank you.”
“I have been also told to tell you that we’re sending a formal diplomatic party to brief the Conclave on the Earth’s definitive response to this new information. They will be here in less than a week. The diplomatic party is under the aegis of the UN but will consist of representatives of several Earth governments. That information is also in the data packet I am sending along.”
“Yes, fine,” I said. This meant that we were about to be in the rather awkward position of having diplomatic representatives from both the Earth and the Colonial Union at the Conclave’s headquarters at the same time. This would have to be managed. I frowned.
“Everything all right, Councilor Sorvalh?” Byrne asked.
“Of course,” I said, and smiled. Byrne offered up a weak smile in return. I remembered that my smile looked rather ghastly to humans, in no small part because it was offered by a creature who was close to twice their height. “This will all be of great use to me when I meet with the general.”
“That’s good to hear,” Byrne said.
“And how are you, Regan?” I asked. “I’m afraid I don’t see you or other members of your mission as often as I would like.”
“We’re good,” Byrne said, and I was aware that I was once again being lied to diplomatically. “I think most of the staff are still getting our bearings and learning the map of the station. It’s very large. Larger than some cities back on Earth.”
“Yes it is,” I said. The headquarters of the Conclave was a space station carved into a large asteroid and was one of the largest engineered objects ever made, not counting some of the more impressive bits made by the Consu, a race so technologically advanced above the rest of the species in this area of space that they should not be included in an estimation, simply out of politeness to everyone else.
“It would have to be,” I continued. “We have to house representatives from four hundred worlds, all their staff, and many of their families, plus a great number of the Conclave’s own government workers and their families, plus all the support workers and their families. It adds up.”
“Is your family here, Councilor Sorvalh?”
I smiled, more gently this time. “Lalans don’t quite have the family structure that humans and many other species do. We are more communally oriented, is the best way to put it. But there is a strong Lalan community here. It’s very comforting.”
“It’s good to hear,” Byrne said. “I miss my family and other humans. It’s lovely here, but sometimes you just miss home.”
“I know what you mean,” I said to her.
* * *
“If the Conclave must end, at least this is a pretty place for the end to begin,” General Tarsem Gau, leader of the Conclave, said to me, standing next to where I sat in the Lalan community park. The park, one of the first created on the Conclave’s asteroid, was large enough for all three hundred of the Lalans stationed at Conclave headquarters to meet, relax, deposit eggs, and monitor the hatched young as they grew.
Tarsem spotted some of the Lalan young, playing on a rock on the far side of the park’s small lake. “Any of yours?” he asked. Jokingly, because he knew I was too old for further egg-laying.
But I answered him seriously. “One or both of them might be Umman’s,” I said. “He and one of the diplomats were in phase not too long ago and she laid her eggs here. Those young are just about the right size to be theirs.”
There was a sudden squawk as an older youth emerged from behind the rock, wrapped its jaws around one of the two youth sunning themselves, and began to bite down. The trapped youth began to struggle; the other one scuttled away. We watched as the younger youth fought to survive, and lost. After a moment the larger youth stole away, younger youth still in its jaws, to eat it in privacy.
Tarsem turned to me. “That still always amazes me,” he said.
“That our young prey on each other?” I asked.
“That it doesn’t bother you that they do,” he said. “Not just you. You or any Lalan adult. You understand that most intelligent species are fiercely protective of their young.”
“As are we,” I replied. “After a certain point. After their brains develop and their consciousness emerges. Before then they are simply animals, and there are so many of them.”